


Suppose I Do

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Body Worship, Consent Play, Demisexual Adrien Agreste, Demisexual Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, F/M, Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting, Implied Sexual Content, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Podfic Welcome, Post-Reveal Pre-Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Queer Het, Relationship Negotiation, Sexual Tension, Trans Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Trans Male Character, sitting these two clowns down to talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: "She isn't flirting with me," Adrien grumbled. "She is treating me like an actual human being she isfriendswith.Friends, Nino. Life isgood.""Could be better if you asked her out," Nino observed."Just…being able tobehis friend, Alya. It's not everything I ever dreamed of, but it's more than I ever thought I'd get. I don't want to fuck this up. I don't want to lose him."Alya rolled her eyes. "Girl, you are not going to lose him if you ask him out.""You don't know that," whispered Marinette."And why don't I know it?" asked Nino.Adrien, thoroughly disgusted with the direction of this conversation, pushed himself away from the wall. "Nino, you are seriously trying to tell me to ante up the best part of my life when I am holding two pair.Two pair, Nino. HellyesI'm folding. Cashing out.Goodbye."





	Suppose I Do

Nino leaned on the lycée building's outer wall beside Adrien, watching Alya drag Marinette off. "Hate to see her go, love to watch her leave," Nino remarked.

"Yeah," said Adrien, floating on a metaphoric cloud of warm fuzzy pink hearts and admiring Marinette's…okay, 'grace' wasn't the word right now, Alya had her too physically off-balance, but it was never _not_ the word, either.

"Dude, you know you could just ask her out, right?" asked Nino.

…Make that chilly gray stormclouds. "I thought Alya was a one-guy type of girl," Adrien said, deliberately misunderstanding.

"Dude. _Marinette_."

Alya tugged Marinette around the corner. Adrien kept his eyes on that spot. "She's not interested."

* * *

Alya turned to Marinette almost as soon as the lycée building (and two particular young men outside its doors) vanished around the corner. "I have it from a reliable source," she said gleefully, "that Adrien has been checking you out!"

Three months ago, Marinette would have demanded the identity of the reliable source. But then, three months ago, this would have been news. She shrugged. "So?"

"So if you ask him out, he'll say yes."

Marinette popped her arm out of Alya's grasp and continued down the sidewalk.

"Come on, Marinette, this is your chance!"

"No, it isn't," said Marinette wearily. "He's not interested."

"Where are you getting _that_ idea?"

"Same place as always."

Alya dashed ahead and spun to stop in her path. "Marinette, I don't know if you've noticed, but that boy keeps flirting with you."

* * *

"She isn't flirting with me," Adrien grumbled. "She stopped letting my father's reputation intimidate her, or else she figured out how she acts with me isn't going to affect her future career and she decided to relax, and she is treating me like an actual human being she is _friends_ with. _Friends_ , Nino. Life is _good_."

"Could be better if you asked her out," Nino observed.

"Yeah, well, first I'd need evidence she wants me to."

"Dude, she's _flirting with you_!"

Adrien just shook his head.

* * *

"He's a _flirt_ , Alya," Marinette grouched. "That's what he _does_. It has always _been_ what he does. It doesn't mean anything to him, so why should it mean anything to me?"

Alya stared at her. "You actually believe that, don't you?" she asked, incredulous. "Marinette, I have never seen Adrien flirt _ever_. Except these last few months, and that only when he's talking to _you_."

"You are also not glued to his side twenty-four seven three-sixty-five." Marinette, who kind of was, had reason to know.

"What, and you are?"

Marinette gave her an unimpressed look and started around her.

* * *

"Wish I were," Adrien admitted. "I want to be the one she comes home to, you know?"

Nino leveled a stare at Adrien. "So ask her out."

"Nino."

"Adrien."

"Look," Adrien said, dragging frustrated hands through his hair, "there are two ways this can go, all right? I ask her out _despite_ her repeated indications of disinterest, you know, like the asshole I am, and she shoots me down again, and either we resume status quo ante—in which case I might as well not have opened my mouth—or that's one time too many and the end of our friendship and I go die of a broken heart. Or I _don't_ ask her out—you know, like a friend who respects her feelings and stated wishes—and then I get to keep what we have. Let me take a moment to point out that what we have is already a treasure beyond price and I very much want to keep it! And then in the wildly unlikely event that she ever decides she _wants_ to bring me roses and make sweet love to me?" Adrien spread his hands. "I am present, eager, and willing."

Nino sighed dramatically. "And in which of these scenarios are _you_ happy?"

"The one where I get to see she's happy," said Adrien at once.

* * *

"Alya, you don't understand."

"Make me understand."

"You don't _want_ to understand."

"Try me."

Marinette heaved a sigh and opted for honesty. "Barring Chloé, I think I'm the first friend Adrien ever made." She reconsidered that too-truthful statement. "One of the first. And Nino was better at _being_ his friend right from the start, and I'm glad Adrien has him because gods know _I_ didn't know what I was doing. But just…being able to _be_ his friend, Alya." Marinette glanced at her. "It's not everything I ever dreamed of, but it's more than I ever thought I'd get. I don't want to fuck this up. I don't want to lose him."

Alya rolled her eyes. "Girl, you are not going to lose him if you ask him out."

"You don't know that," whispered Marinette.

* * *

"And why don't I know it?" asked Nino.

Adrien, thoroughly disgusted with the direction of this conversation, pushed himself away from the wall. "Nino, you are seriously trying to tell me to ante up the best part of my life when I am holding two pair. _Two pair_ , Nino. Hell _yes_ I'm folding. Cashing out. _Goodbye_."

He could hear Nino calling after him, chasing him, but Adrien just had to get enough of a lead and then slip into a secluded spot with no observers and another obvious exit—ah, perfect! "Plagg, claws out," Adrien whispered, and extended his baton to send himself straight into the air, and retracted it before Nino could reach this alley.

Chat Noir watched from the adjacent roof as Nino shouted for Adrien, and then turned and vaulted away.

* * *

Marinette, frustrated beyond belief, glared at Alya. "If he ever decides he _wants_ to jump my bones, I'll be there. Until then, you are trying to get me in on a game of Russian roulette and I'm _not_ risking it. This conversation is _over_."

She could hear Alya chasing her, calling for her, but she just had to get a moment somewhere no eyes could be on her—there! "Tikki, spots on!" Marinette whispered, and if she left the alley at the other end and backtracked across the roofs so Ladybug could soar across Alya's field of view from a direction Marinette definitely hadn't vanished in—

Alya kept running, glancing between Ladybug and the spot she'd last seen Marinette, visibly torn. Ladybug did not particularly care. Either Alya would follow Marinette or she'd follow Ladybug, and one of these would take longer for Ladybug to ditch her than the other but regardless _Marinette_ had gotten clean away.

—Wait, what was _Chat Noir_ doing out?

Ladybug caught up to him running across a series of roofs three blocks from the lycée. "Akuma?" she called over.

Chat glanced her way. "Doubt it," he called back. Which meant the tension in his spine and the set, dismal look on his face had some _other_ cause, and damn it she had just _seen_ him, he'd been _smiling_ , he'd been _fine_. "Can we revisit the ethics of dumping our friends in the river?"

"Too villainous," Ladybug answered. "Pass. Tempting, though," she had to admit.

Chat's expression turned contemplative for a heartbeat, and then he was bounding sideways, sliding the very tips of his claws across her armored shoulder blades, leaving lines of fire on her skin. "Tag! You're it!"

Ladybug caught her yo-yo on a chimney to send her hurtling after her unfairly attractive, woefully uninterested partner. "Get back here!"

* * *

Adrien waved hello to Mama Cheng, failed to refuse a plate of pastries, and headed upstairs to Marinette's apartment. Nino and Alya were already there, going a round of Mecha Strike while Marinette fussed over something in the kitchen. Adrien set the plate on the countertop. "You still upset?" he asked, though the furious way she was chopping carrots suggested he knew the answer.

"I'll be fine," Marinette told him, setting down the knife and turning to a cabinet. "As long as Alya keeps her nose out of things that aren't her business." She lobbed the bottle of ibuprofen his way. "You?"

Adrien checked the time; yeah, he was about due, wasn't he? "Nino thinks he's helping," he answered, shaking out a couple pills. "Narrator voice: He was not helping."

Marinette handed him a glass of water. "Well, this is going to be a fun group project."

Adrien gulped down the pills. "We could drop-kick them off the roof and do the whole thing ourselves." He snagged a couple carrot sticks for chaser.

"Let's not and say we did." She was snickering, which was an improvement.

Alya whooped. "Eat my _dust_ , Lahiffe!"

"Yeah, yeah," grouched Nino. "Adrien's here anyway. Let's get down to business."

" _To defeat! the Huns!_ " sang Adrien, because he couldn't _not_. " _Did they send me daughters_ —" Marinette coolly took a longer kitchen knife from the block. "— _when I asked_ —" She was flipping it around her hand, blade flashing in the evening sunlight, and it wasn't that he thought there was going to be any bloodshed, exactly— "Okay, send daughters."

Marinette slotted the knife back into the block and laughed.

"Your room, Marinette?" asked Alya, scooping up the pastries as she passed.

"Yeah. Just give me a moment."

Adrien dumped the pile of carrot peelings in the kitchen garbage while Marinette piled the carrot sticks on a plate, then followed her upstairs. He'd barely cleared the trap door when Alya closed it behind them and plopped herself down on it.

He glanced at Marinette. She frowned.

"Nino and I were talking," Alya said cheerily, "and you are both utterly oblivious, and we are staging an intervention."

Marinette glanced at Adrien. He stared Alya down. "What do you mean?"

"Hate to see her go," said Nino behind him. "Love to watch her leave."

"Yeah," said Adrien's recorded voice.

Adrien whirled. Nino was waggling his phone and grinning. Adrien lunged for it. Nino dodged, and kept dodging.

" _Dude, you know you could just_ —"

"I did not consent to the recording of this conversation," Adrien said loudly, trying to drown out Nino's recorded voice.

"— _type of girl,_ " said recorded Adrien.

" _Dude,_ " said recorded Nino, and emphasized, " _Marinette._ "

"Nino!" snapped Adrien.

" _She's not interested,_ " said recorded Adrien.

"For fuck's _sake_ , Nino!" Adrien shouted.

The audio paused.

"Nino, seriously," Adrien pleaded. "You have blackmail material forever now, I don't even care what you want, I will do _anything_ , just don't let her hear that!"

Marinette was staring at Adrien, wide-eyed and frozen.

"What I want?" said Nino, grinning broader. "What I want is you to sit Marinette down and tell her what's on this recording."

"No."

" _Do you realize she keeps flirting with you?_ " recorded Nino said.

"Fuck you!"

Nino paused it again. "Then I'm playing her this recording."

"Oh, but that's not very interesting," Alya remarked. "Not in isolation." She held up her own phone and pressed play.

" _I have it from_ —" said recorded Alya.

"LA LA LA LA LA," said Marinette very loudly.

Alya paused it.

"Alya, please, I am begging you," said Marinette. "Don't tell him."

Adrien had to admit some curiosity.

"— _that Adrien has been checking you out!_ "

" _So?_ " asked recorded Marinette, and—

The very flatness of that one syllable…

…fuck, he'd been screwing this up all along, hadn't he?

"Gods all fucking _damn_ it, Alya," growled Adrien, and turned to Marinette, who remained statue-still. "I'll stop," he promised. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you objected."

Marinette shook herself. "It's fine," she mumbled, not looking at him.

"I'll take your word for it," said Adrien, who had no such plans.

" _So if you ask him out,_ " continued recorded Alya, " _he'll say yes._ " This was true, Adrien observed, looking around for any escape that didn't involve pitching two of his best friends off Marinette's balcony. " _Come on, Marinette, this is your chance!_ "

—Say.

" _No, it isn't,_ " said recorded Marinette, as Adrien bolted up the stairs towards the skylight. " _He's not interested._ "

Adrien lost his grip on the edge of the now-open skylight and thumped down onto Marinette's bed.

"Leaving so soon, Adrien?" asked Nino, laughing.

He got back up. "She does not want me to hear this. Therefore, I refuse to hear this." A single jump took him onto the balcony.

—Wait, shit, that got Adrien out of listening to _Alya's_ recording, but it left Marinette alone with both conspirators and _Nino's_ recording. And Chat Noir had a way off this balcony that wasn't through her bedroom, but _Adrien didn't_.

Marinette climbed out of the skylight.

Alya slammed it shut and, through the sound of her laughter, Adrien heard the latch click.

"Well, _fuck_ ," said Adrien. He sprawled face down on the lounge chair, so he wouldn't be watching her. "I'm guessing we can't get back in that way until they know we've talked about—" He waved one dangling hand and let it drop.

"Let's not and say we did," said Marinette. She sat down next to the chair, her shoulder brushing his forearm.

Adrien twitched his arm away. "Yeah, that's not a plan." He scrubbed his other hand over his face. "Not if Nino kept recording till I gave up and left. And really, with blackmail _that_ juicy, why would he stop?"

"…right," said Marinette. "Yeah, Alya's going to interrogate you later. _Great_." Her head fell back against his side.

This woman was going to be the death of him, one way or another. "Please don't touch me," he told her.

"What?" Her warmth vanished. "Why? We've _always_ —"

Adrien exhaled. "Yeah. We've always."

Fuck _everything_.

Her hand hovered above his shoulder, tantalizingly close but pointedly so far away. "You could have said something sooner."

"I didn't _know_ sooner."

"You didn't know sooner that you don't want me touching you," Marinette repeated, flatly disbelieving.

"It doesn't matter what I want." Never had, really.

"Adrien. Look at me and tell me with a straight face you do not want me touching you."

Adrien rolled over and looked up at her. There were glimmers of tears in her eyes; _fuck_. "You are clearly not comfortable with me _looking_ at you, and you never _told_ me, which means I fucked up somewhere bad enough that you can't _trust_ me. Why should I believe you want _me_ touching _you_?" He shoved himself off the lounge chair and went to lean on the balcony railing. "So yes. Please stop touching me."

"This is what I was afraid of," Marinette muttered. "This is exactly what I was afraid of."

She sounded…defeated.

Ladybug wasn't supposed to sound _defeated_.

"I'm sorry," Adrien told her, watching the twilight fall across the city. "I don't know what I did but I'm _sorry_. I'll fix it, I promise, I'll make it up to you somehow, I just need to know _how_."

Marinette stayed silent.

"I think we can fix this," she said finally. "But to do that, we need to talk about this. No more secrets, no more lies. And _no more eavesdroppers_ ," she added, and Adrien had no trouble picturing her glaring down through the skylight at Nino and Alya. "Think you can get down like this safely, Monsieur My-Bedroom-Has-A-Climbing-Wall?"

"Down's easy. Down without breaking anything…" Adrien assessed the side of the building. "Doable. Might not even scuff the paint."

"Good. Do that. Go find somewhere we can talk privately. I'm going to throw a fit until they open the skylight or I get pissed off enough to break the glass, and then I'm going to storm out without a word to them and I'll come find you. All right, chaton?"

She couldn't be too horribly upset if she was calling him _chaton_. Could she?

"Already done, my lady," said Adrien, and vaulted the railing.

* * *

Ladybug caught up with Chat Noir in a little rooftop garden, dimly lit by the half moon and overgrown badly enough Ladybug suspected it of having been forgotten. He was slumped on the long wooden bench, cat ears drooped, contemplating his claws. "Hey," she said softly.

Chat hardly twitched. "I wasn't sure you were actually coming."

"Why wouldn't I?" She dropped down beside him.

He slid several centimeters away and didn't reply.

"Right," muttered Ladybug. "Okay. I think I know what went wrong here."

Chat's nearer cat ear swiveled towards her.

"I think," she continued, "we have both been assuming we know what the other one thinks and wants and expects, and we have both been believing that means we don't need to discuss such things unless the other one says something's changed. And we both keep being too afraid to tell each other what we _really_ think and want and hope for, because we think the other one actively doesn't want what we want, so we keep not discussing such things. And we're both _wrong_."

Chat looked over. "What do you mean?"

Ladybug snorted. "I _saw_ how you startled when you heard me say you're not interested in me. And I am really curious to know why you think I'm not interested in you."

He returned his gaze to his fingertips. "Every time I tried to express my interest, my lady, you ignored it or deflected it or flat out shot me out of the sky. Eventually I realized I didn't want to push so far I'd lose you, and I didn't know how close I was to 'too far'. So I stopped."

He hadn't—the flirting had doubled, actually, three months ago; more than, really, since that was when she'd consciously started reciprocating—but…now that she thought about it, some of the spirit had gone out of his flirtations a couple months before that. Why hadn't she noticed?

"You weren't serious," said Ladybug, shrugging. Then reconsidered this statement in light of the mutual need to stop assuming shit. "…Were you serious?"

"Uh," said Chat Noir, and without moving seemed almost to fold in on himself. "I mean. I was always joking. I couldn't have said any of it if I wasn't joking. But I was never kidding."

"…I need to reevaluate four years of interactions," said Ladybug, feeling faint. "Please hold."

He didn't say anything.

"What do you want from me, minou?" Ladybug said at last.

He still didn't look at her. "Everything you want to give me, and not one micron more. Unless what you want to give me is a boot to the ass and instructions to get out of your life, in which case no, I don't want that, but please hurry up and get it over with."

"I'm going to kick your ass later for thinking I could want to get rid of you," Ladybug said at once, "but this is not the opportune moment."

Whatever was she going to _do_ with him?

…Wait.

Maybe.

…wait, shit. "I need you to tell me I can do this," she said, shaky. "Don't ask why, yet. Just—just tell me I can do this. Like you always do when I lose my nerve."

Chat shrugged. "Do you _want_ to do this? Whatever 'this' is."

"…Yeah."

"You don't sound sure."

"I'm not. Tell me anyway."

"If you say so." Chat smiled just a little. "You can do this, LB. You can do anything you set yourself to."

Ladybug nodded, resolved. "Thanks."

"Anytime." He didn't sound enthused.

She gathered her nerve. "Chaton, do you want to look at me?"

He sighed. "Not if you don't want me to. As I just said more than once."

"Suppose I do." Ladybug stood up and moved to stand in front of him; with his head at that angle he could probably see her feet and not much more. "Suppose I _want_ you watching me. Suppose I want to feel…" She trailed off. "I don't know. Attractive? Desirable?"

"You are definitely that," said Chat without looking up, though she could see the change in his bodily tension: less kicked kitten, more alert alley cat.

"Suppose I want your eyes on me," Ladybug repeated. "Do you want to look at me?"

"…Yeah."

"Then look at me."

He didn't move. "Has anyone ever told you you have lovely ankles?" Chat Noir sounded…well, she wasn't sure _how_ he sounded. Curious, maybe.

"No?" ventured Ladybug, bemused.

"Well, you have lovely ankles. Sturdy. Graceful." He lifted his head a very little. "Strong calves, too. I bet you go running a lot."

"You're usually there," Ladybug observed.

"Not the point." Chat lifted his head a little more. "Your thighs. I, uh." He swallowed down whatever he was wanting to say, but she was starting to get the idea now; they could come back to that in a bit, if they both wanted. "All that muscle." A beat. "Uh. Could you turn around?"

Ladybug spun on her heel and took a stance that she knew would draw attention to her ass, and if it was a little bit borrowed from Sailor Mars's end-of-transformation-sequence pose, well, she'd seen enough _Sailor Moon_ with him that she knew Adrien wasn't about to object.

" _Guh_ ," Chat Noir said, sending a ripple of warmth through her belly and a flush to her cheeks. "—shit, sorry, that's too much, isn't it—"

"No, no," Ladybug interrupted, "it's fine. You're fine. Keep going."

"Okay, okay! …Okay. Um. You do this little butt wiggle when you're excited," Chat continued. "It's adorable."

Ladybug hmphed. "Hell with _adorable_."

Chat snickered, which was _not_ helping her composure, and cleared his throat. "I don't see adorable right now," he told her, his voice low and—

She didn't have a good adjective for this. She'd never _heard_ him like this before.

He'd fallen silent. That wouldn't do. "Tell me what you see," Ladybug instructed him. "If I don't like what I hear, I'll let you know."

"All right then," he answered, and there was a brightness to his voice that—that she hadn't actually heard in…a while. Five months? Six? Longer? "You have a really great ass. Makes me wonder what it would be like to have in my hand. Or—or, better, in my lap."

Those…those were good ideas. She swallowed. "Keep going."

"Your back," Chat continued. "You—you carry so much. For our friends. For our city. Most people couldn't handle it. You hardly even flinch." He paused. "Let me carry some of that for you, huh?"

"Set that aside for later," said Ladybug, and there was no way she didn't sound breathless.

"Your spine," said Chat, and she wanted him to run his hand down the center of her back, longed for it, _expected_ him to—he _always_ knew when she needed him near—and found herself surprised to feel nothing but the weight of his gaze. Surprised and—not desperate, not yet, but— "I really admire your spine. You stand up to anyone when something important to you is on the line. You always have."

"Not always," she confessed. "Only since I met—"

That sentence was supposed to end _Alya_ , but she realized in a rush of fire to her heart that that wasn't _true_.

"—Only since I met you."

" _Oh_ ," said Chat, sounding rather like she'd socked him in the gut. "Oh. I—uh—" He stopped. She could hear his breathing. "Could you turn back around?"

Ladybug turned back around. She crossed her arms nervously, uncrossed them again; he was looking at her waist height and she didn't have the nerve to _try_ to draw his attention to her breasts. Not quite. Not yet.

—Wait. "Are you actually sitting on your hands?" He _was_ , and it looked like he'd wrapped his tail around one arm first. Which, okay, he claimed the tail did as it pleased (she remained unconvinced), it probably made sense right now to keep the thing reined in…

That was definitely a blush. "So what if I am?"

"You might want to not," Ladybug observed.

Chat Noir pushed himself to his feet, his tail coming loose from his arm. He grabbed its end and clasped both hands behind his back; she chose not to protest further. She could reach out, reach up, and take him by the shoulder. They were close enough together; that was definitely a thing she could do.

Not yet.

She crossed her arms again. His shoulders were level with her eyes, so that's where she looked. "Keep going."

"Your abs." She could see how his biceps were tensing and relaxing. "Wicked core strength. I love when I'm relying on your strength."

When she was using him as a projectile weapon, he meant. "I hate that part," she admitted. "You're tough, but you're still breakable."

"Mm. Your hands," he went on, his voice low and rough. "Artist's hands. Healer's hands. _Beautiful_ hands. Such beautiful things come from your hands."

Ladybug uncrossed her arms to regard her hands. They didn't look all that special to her, but—

(Chat Noir did not lie to her. Sometimes he didn't tell her things she needed to know, but they were working on that as they spoke. And there had been several instances where he'd said something she knew then or later learned was untrue, but not in the past three months and never (she thought) for any reason other than to preserve their mutual secret even from each other, and even if she hadn't done the same to him—and she knew she had—she would refuse to count those against him. He _did not_ lie to her.)

He held himself still, but his tail twitched in his grasp. "I keep wondering," he continued, "how it would feel to have your hands on me."

She rather wanted to know that herself.

Not yet.

Ladybug straightened her spine, squared her shoulders, arched her back just a little. "Keep going."

"Remember to tell me if I come close to a line you don't want me crossing," Chat told her.

She swallowed. "I haven't forgotten."

She looked up, wanting to watch him tell her this. Chat's eyes were focused. Shining. He had a small smile, soft, one she'd seen before but never (she thought) when he knew she was looking, and she wasn't sure he noticed when he licked his lip.

"You have," he told her, "the most beautiful breasts." Her heart did a triple flip in her chest. "Breathtaking. I can't look at them too much when there's people. Someone might notice I'm forgetting to breathe."

"Chat," whispered Ladybug. She was going to shiver into _pieces_ if he kept this up.

"—Should I stop?"

"Don't you dare."

Chat nodded. "Your neck," he said. "Wonder if it tastes as good as it looks."

She sucked in a breath: she wanted to _feel_ that. Maybe he wanted to kiss a line down the side of her neck, each moment of contact fleeting as the breeze. Maybe he wanted to bite till he left a bruise, a mark she would have to either display for the world to see or conceal so that only he could know.

"Are you okay?" Chat asked, forehead wrinkling with worry. "Should I—"

"Keep going," she interrupted. "You haven't got to my face yet."

"You're trembling," Chat told her. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"It's sweet you're so concerned for my health, minou," Ladybug answered with a slow smile. "I'm just…going a little weak in the knees here." She paused to watch his eyes widen as the implication impacted. "Aren't you?"

" _Guh_."

She waited. He swallowed a couple of times. "Your—your hair," he continued. "Keep wondering how it'd feel between my fingers. Bet it's soft."

He fell silent.

"Keep going."

Chat's gaze lingered on her lips. Met her eyes. He stayed silent.

"Keep going, chaton."

"Mercy," he whispered. "Mercy, my lady, please."

…Aww. She really wanted to hear what he had to say about her lips and her eyes.

Not yet.

—Where had she left off when he decided to make her feel desired?

"Chaton, do you want to touch me?"

Judging by the tremor that overtook him, _yes_. "Not if you don't want me to," he repeated. He didn't sound weary, this time, only hesitant, teetering on the border of sad.

"Suppose I do," Ladybug told him. "Suppose I _want_ you touching me. Suppose I want your hugs. Your caresses. Your hands on mine. Do you want to touch me?"

"Yeah," he said, a low breathy sigh.

"Then touch me."

Chat pounced. There was no other word for it: one moment he stood an arm's length away, his hands behind his back and his tail held clear of trouble, and the next he had hold of her, clutching her shoulders to his chest, one of his legs slotted between hers, his tail wrapped around her waist, his face buried in her hair. He was shaking. That was fine; so was she.

Ladybug eased her arms around him, so she could hold him as tightly as he her, and laid a light kiss on the pulse point of his neck.

"Mercy," Chat gasped out.

She would back off if she physically could. She didn't _want_ to—she was _afire_ here—but she pressed herself back against his arms just a little; he released her; she stumbled back and would have fallen had he not caught her. When she was better balanced, he let go again, and she stepped away.

"Let me know when to keep going," Ladybug said softly. "Or when to stop."

Chat drew in long slow breath after long slow breath, his eyes wandering the overgrown rooftop garden. "I don't want to stop," he said finally. "But I…" He exhaled. "None of your lines are where I thought they were, my lady. My map is useless and I've never been here before."

"Me neither." Ladybug went over to one of the planters and crushed a few of the leaves between her fingers. The sharp scent of rosemary filled the air. "We can explore together."

"Okay." She heard the creak of the wooden bench as he sat. "I feel like you have another let's-suppose or two tucked behind your ear."

"Three."

" _Three_ ," repeated Chat disbelievingly. "For the love of all things holy, Marinette, _mercy_!"

Ladybug dropped to one knee in front of him, looking up at his wide green gaze—his pupils were blown wide in astonished desire; _she'd_ done that!—and laying one hand gently on his thigh. "You just said you don't want to stop, Adrien…?"

Chat huffed, acknowledging the point. "Keep going."

"…are you sure?"

"No. Keep going anyway."

Okay then. She could do this. She could do whatever she set herself to; the person she trusted above all else to know her capabilities and to push her out of her comfort zone at need _said so_. She could _do_ this.

"Chaton, do you want to kiss me?"

He focused on her lips. Lifted one hand to her cheek, letting the tip of his thumb-claw trace a burning line to the corner of her mouth. "Not," he repeated, "if you don't want me to."

"S-suppose I do," she said. "Suppose I _want_ you to kiss me. Suppose I've wanted you to kiss me since that day in the rain, right after we met, when you gave me your umbrella even though you couldn't possibly think I thought well of you."

"That long?" he whispered.

She smiled. "Do you want to kiss me?"

Chat took his time about answering: he laid his free hand on her shoulder, ran it down her arm, clasped her hand in his. Traced the pad of his thumb over her lips and moved to caress her neck, her shoulder. No lower: she was starting to consider asking for mercy herself when he finally said, "Yeah. Yeah, I want to kiss you."

"Then," said Ladybug, and swallowed again. "Then kiss me."

Chat lifted her into his lap and paused to study her face, blinking long and slow.

She wasn't sure what he was reading in her expression, excepting a rising impatience that she knew—after four years of partnership? after four years of working together in what she was pretty sure she would still consider the most intimate relationship she were capable of even if she had ever had any quote-unquote intimate relationships to compare with? she _knew_ —he felt as strongly. "Chaton," she said.

"Hey now," he protested. "I thought I was never getting this, remember? I want to savor the moment."

"There will be more moments," Ladybug pointed out irritably.

He laughed in her ear, his cheek rubbing on hers. "Also, you should google 'kitty kisses' sometime."

"Sure. Later. Right now I want _people_ kisses."

"…she says to the friendly local alley cat." He nuzzled her neck.

Which, okay, _yes_ , that was good, that was feeding the flames, that was going to feature prominently in some of those more moments, but— " _Please_ , Chat."

He pulled back, watching her. There was laughter in his eyes, and—if she had to guess, that was desire.

Why was he hesitating?

" _Kiss me_ , Chat Noir!"

Chat smirked and leaned in, pressing his lips briefly to hers.

"For fuck's sweet sake!" He had kissed her more thoroughly when they were fighting Dark Cupid!

"Ladybug, barring an akuma or other such disaster, at this point there are only two ways the rest of my night can go." He regarded her with a burning seriousness. "We leave in different directions and I, shall we say, play with myself while imagining you playing with yourself while imagining me—or we leave in the _same_ direction."

—Oh.

(Yeah, maybe she hadn't thought this one through.)

(…Did she care?)

"And how you kiss me matters for deciding which?" she asked.

"Nah." He smiled, gentle. "It's just that I'm running low on self-control here, so I need to be clear on which you're choosing, because I do not want to start something that you don't want to finish and I can't stop midway."

— _Oh_.

"So," said Chat. "I hear you have two more let's-supposes."

Ladybug nodded once and began to caress his neck, feeling his pulse beat under her hand. "Chaton, do you want to fuck me?"

He inhaled sharply and buried his face in her shoulder, clutching her close and trembling. "Mercy," he whispered. "Marinette. Mercy."

"Answer me, Chat. We don't have to act on it but _answer me_. Do you want to fuck me?"

"N-not. Not if you don't want me to."

"Suppose I do," Ladybug continued, unwilling to relent until he called a halt. "Suppose I _want_ you to fuck me. Suppose half my lifetime supply of sexual fantasies are of you, Adrien. And three-quarters of the rest, Chat, they're of you."

"I feel like—like your math's off," Chat panted, and mercifully did not ask about the remainder.

Ladybug could feel the tension in his back: a leopard watching a gazelle, poised to pounce. One way or another, he was about to snap.

"Chat. Do you want to fuck me?"

He hissed out a breath, hot and gentle on her throat. "Yeah."

Heart thundering, she braced herself. "Then fuck me."

He leaped to his feet, slinging one arm around her shoulders and the other under her knees. "Not here I won't."

"…really," said Ladybug, annoyed.

"I can see lights in some of these windows, LB—grab my baton, will you?—and you do realize the suits don't come off unless the masks do?"

She did not grab his baton. (Or his, ah, baton, tempting as the possibility was. Or the hypothesis, anyway; they hadn't actually discussed what physical changes his transformation granted in quite that intimate detail.) "Put me down, Chat."

He pulled her tighter, then set her gently on her feet. "My lady—" he whined.

"Breathe, will you?" She needed a moment herself. He was right, anyway: there were lights on in overlooking windows. She didn't know why she hadn't noticed. And even if they _could_ count on being unobserved here, that wasn't their only safety concern. "I should probably enter my home via the ground floor entrance. You should probably not. And I don't have any—I don't know, lube? Dental dams? Whatever. So you should detour to fix that. And we should both grab something to eat—each other doesn't count," Ladybug added, watching him instantly pretend total innocence. There were enough bakery- and pussy-related double entendres in her future as it was. "And Alya and Nino are probably still in my apartment, and before you arrive I want to be sure they are not."

"—Good points," said Chat. He made a visible attempt to calm his breathing, gave up, and vaulted off the roof. A moment later and in a different direction, Ladybug did the same.

* * *

Adrien's phone started buzzing, the painful pattern one he'd chosen explicitly to be impossible to sleep through, or to lie awake ignoring. Except with the phone down on the chaise or something and Marinette sprawled over him, sleeping more deeply and contentedly than (he suspected) she had for a few years, it was also impossible to silence.

…Father was not going to be happy to find Adrien had spent the night somewhere other than Adrien's own lonely bed. And Adrien had about twenty minutes to get home and sell the story that he'd done no such thing before it became inevitable Father found out.

The alarm buzzed on, searing through his skull. Marinette grumbled something into Adrien's collarbone.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Marinette turned her head. "Tikki, shut it off," she mumbled. A moment later, blessed silence fell.

"I do have to get up," Adrien told her. It wasn't physically urgent; he would put up with so much worse than unmedicated severe cramps to stay this close to her, never mind these mild ones or needing to pee.

"No. Stay. Cuddle."

Tempting— _very_ tempting: the soothing weight of her through two layers of cotton had his blood humming at a quiet delighted drumbeat; if she were awake enough to think about it, getting them back out of pajamas and upping the tempo might be an option, if there were time to get clean enough after no one could be _sure_ they were fucking, because hell if he wanted to let on to Nino or Alya yet—

But—

"You know I'll catch hell if Nathalie notices I didn't come home last night."

Marinette twitched in a motion too languid to be a shrug. "Project. Lost track time. Hospitality." Half her sounds were slurred together.

"That won't fly with Nathalie and it _really_ won't fly with Father."

"Tell 'em they'd do same." She yawned. "Embarrass them they're bad hosts," she continued, a little more clearly enunciated, "only not so like you think they're bad hosts."

Adrien snickered, because that might actually work. He wasn't sure he'd bet on it, but—

With the chances he'd taken last night for his lady, to make clear that he'd only held back because he'd thought she wanted him to—now that she was asking him for this, how could he refuse her?

—Wait.

"LB?"

"Mm?"

"You said," Adrien began, "last night, you had three more let's-supposes, plus the first two make five."

"Mm-hm?"

"Look at, touch, kiss, fuck—" He let his fingertips slide up to the point where her jaw and neck met, just below her ear. He'd cut her hair himself six weeks ago because, she'd said, making Adrien do it meant she didn't have to keep from twitching too visibly in the hairstylist's chair. "What's the fifth?"

Her whole body jerked.

"—Marinette?"

She drew in a breath and let it out, easing the tension in her muscles. "This is the scary one," Marinette told him, shifting some of her weight off him—she wasn't trying to get up or to move his other arm from around her, though—? "The rest—there can't be anything falls under risk-aware consensual kink we haven't already done scarier."

If Ladybug restrained him with her yo-yo, or Chat Noir her with his tail—

"That's what I thought," said Marinette, smug, and pressed a kiss to his neck; Adrien's blush burned at least that far down. "And it's not like we might get pregnant." She paused. "I—want to. Later. When we can be responsible parents."

After Hawkmoth, then, because it wasn't like they were being responsible friends at present, and as for responsible students, they were hardly even trying—

Wait a minute.

"Given any thought to who their father would be?" Adrien asked, carefully idly, as though the answer might—

Marinette thumped him in the shoulder. "Same person I've wanted to for the past four years," she told him, tart. "I don't know why you'd think that'd change." She paused. "Genetically, I'd ask Nino first. If you liked."

Oh. Adrien relaxed and started to comb his fingers through her loose hair.

"But that's—pretty scary in itself, Chat. Like. Even just the thought. Fucking Nino, or Alya, or anyone else we could think of, that's _scary_." Marinette was sneaking her hand around the side of his head; her fingers found the spot where one of his cat ears belonged—it felt increasingly strange when that wasn't there—and Adrien couldn't help but purr. "You—last night I was only nervous, and only because I didn't know if you wanted me too."

Exactly how long had they both been ignoring—? No, never mind. "The fifth one," Adrien reminded her. "The scary one."

"Yeah." Marinette rolled off him altogether, moving to kneel beside him, even as Adrien reluctantly sat up. "Adrien—do you want to love me?"

"What a ridiculous fucking question," said Adrien.

Marinette stared at him. He could hear his heart pounding, and, more faintly, hers.

Adrien glanced away. "I tried not to, for a while. Seemed like you didn't want me to love you, so I should stop. I told you last night, I don't want to lose you." He swallowed. "I can suppose you don't love me, or I can suppose you do. I can suppose you don't want me to love you, or I can suppose you do. It doesn't matter. Especially now, when you just said you, me, and children?" She knew _exactly_ what he felt about neglectful parenting: especially now, when she'd as good as said forever? "It doesn't _matter_."

"Look at me," murmured Marinette, and Adrien did. The corner of her smile was trembling—these lips that persuaded bystanders, rallied friends, commanded cities, _trembling_ —and her eyes, always too perceptive except when he tried to show her his heart, were focused on him and shining. "Of course I want you to love me. I never figured out how to stop loving you either."

Oh. _Oh_.

Adrien pulled her into his lap, the better to embrace her, purring, and hold back the tears of joy.

"Now that the mushy stuff's out of the way," interrupted Plagg from somewhere down on the main level, "can we get something to eat?"

"Plagg!" protested Tikki. "Don't ruin the moment!"

Marinette groaned, leaning around Adrien to fumble under her pillow. "Plagg, just go raid the refrigerator. In the apartment, not the bakery, I do not want to explain anything to my parents. Or raid Tikki's cookie stash and we'll get you cheese when we get our break—" She blinked at her phone screen. "—fast. Adrien, why the _fuck_ does your alarm go off at 5h30?"

"—Uh."

She pushed him back down onto the pillow and flopped on top of him. "Sleep," she said into his ear.

Yeah, that wasn't actually happening. "You know particle physicists do it energetically?"

"Oh fuck you. Later. _Sleeping_." Marinette faked a snore.

Well, thought Adrien, finding a more comfortable way to hold her, there were worse ways to spend a morning, he supposed.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](http://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/)


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